what is interesting about rescue is the whole spectrum of various beliefs, practices, mores, morals involved. and how those mores shift and change depending what kind of animal is involved. and because we are human..we all think our own personal thought processes are the only ones that make any sense at all.
I have said it before, there are a thousand different ways to climb up a mountain....some ways are easy, some are hard, some paths are clearly or confusingly marked.
I think rescue success is not so much based on the path you choose to climb..i think it is based on the true motives behind you as you do climb. most people in rescue want to help animals..yes there are a few power or prestige seekers and yes like any enterprise, there are folks in it looking to fill their pockets. but on the whole most folks in rescue have a deep emotional connection with animals and truly want to make their lives better.
the problem is, as humans...we have problems getting past personalities. we are not grown up enough to separate how we feel about a particular person to look at how they rescue objectively. we throw our personal feelings into the rescue pot and stir it all up so to make sure it doesn't taste good to anyone.
I have to say, that this bugs me.
none of us are here in rescue to fulfill our own personal needs...we are not here to make friends or to increase our personal popularity ratings. we are here to get animals off of the streets and into somewhere safe and warm. we are here to prevent unnecessary death, suffering, neglect and abuse to the animal victims of uncaring, cruel, ignorant or thoughtless humans.
how we do that is up to us...how successful we are at it mostly does depend on us as individuals and how much effort we are willing to put in to learn, to grow, to try each day to be better than the day before.
it is a journey of self discovery in order to do it better. it is a journey of opening our minds to the possibilities ahead of us. it is a journey with no clear finish line in sight because for most of us this journey continues for our entire lives.
I am better at listing the animals I have failed than I am on the ones that I have helped. my failures are the ones I hold closest, never letting go of, never setting them aside. they are the markers of how I must do better. they help to guide me as I continue on to the future.
no one in real rescue is ever going to get anywhere worthwhile without a ton of heartbreak and deep scars inside them. and the real heartbreak comes when we have screwed up and could have done it better. it has nothing to do with what others are doing or not doing..it has to do with us..alone. how we choose to learn from our mistakes and continue to move on.
the next time someone tells you how someone else SHOULD be climbing the mountain..take a look around you. where are they standing, where are you standing, where are the others standing? and who is not standing around at all but is still climbing up that blasted hill. then decide which way it is that you want to climb and get your feet moving and go.
ok